High Critique

Posting Guidelines

A place for critical commentary, mainly for the more than merely moderately experienced. Park your ego outside, embrace critical commentary, and, as always, comment on at least three poems for each one you post. Good luck!

Before you consider posting, please read these guidelines in full:

Welcome to the High Critique forum of the Poetry Free For All. This is where things start to get pithy, and subsequently, where the bar is set higher. As with all the forums, the Posting Guidelines are very much applicable here. So too are the High guidelines below:

1. "More than merely moderately experienced" means that, as a writer, it is assumed you know the basics of poetic knowledge. You should know common poetic terms, common forms, and what the heck clichés and abstractions are. There should be evidence from the quality of the poetry you post that you have put thought into it, that some revision has already been done, and that you are ready for and will understand the forthright, honest, and potentially harsh critique you will receive in High.

1a. If the moderators do not feel that your work indicates a fundamental knowledge of poetic basics, and that you have not, in fact, put some work and some thought into it, the moderators reserve the right to delete it, lock it, or move it to a more appropriate forum. We'd prefer it, however, if you lurked in High and figured it out for yourself. If you're not sure you're up to posting in High, post in General C&C instead. Better safe than slapped by mods. Trust me.

2. "More than merely moderately experienced" also means that, as a critic, it is assumed you know the basics of poetic knowledge. With your comments, it should be clear that you are generally able to grasp a writer's intent and evaluate how successful the poem communicates that intent, that you have an appreciation of how sound works in poetry, and that you have a familiarity with figurative language, metric forms, and effective use of rhyme. Lastly, you should be able to tell when a revision is actually regressing rather than progressing. If you can't do that, you should hang out in General C&C a while to get the hang of it.

2a. If the moderators feel that your critique consistently indicates a fundamental lack of knowledge about poetic basics, you will be asked not to critique poetry in High but instead to keep your comments and poetry to the General C&C forum, where you can continue to work on your skills before returning.

A critique of poor quality can do far more harm than good to a writer, particularly when that writer is moderately experienced but not yet at a level where he or she is easily able to accept or discard critique as beneficial or not compared to someone in, say, the Merciless forum.

3. Keep the fluff down. We hate vacuuming and some of us are allergic. If you're there, reading the poem, and if you're about to respond to that poem, make sure you have something to say about that poem. Keep the idle chit chat to the Watering Hole, and avoid consistent "critique" that one could have easily pulled from a fortune cookie.

High Critique is one of the most crucial workshopping steps in the Poetry Free For All. This is where the niggling, persistent bugs in a writer's poetic style are smooshed and where consistency of quality and consistency of voice really begin to emerge. We don't like people screwing with that. This doesn't mean we mind if things are light-hearted, but try not to get distracted by shiny objects or flashing lights. In other words, stay focused on the poetry, and we'll get along just fine.

We hope you've enjoyed these guidelines. To continue, click the link below:

I have read and understood the rules for posting in High Critique
and am now prepared for poetic rhinoplasty via critical grindstone.